Friday, September 7, 2012

Hacienda Moon by KaSonndra Leigh Review


Hacienda Moon 
Author:  KaSonndra Leigh 
ISBN:  0615668232 (ISBN13: 9780615668239) 
Release Date: July 28th 2012
Format : Kindle
Pages: 280
Genre: Adult Romance, Paranormal/ghosts,
Historic,  Contemporary











Summary
Love, obsession, and betrayal, the most powerful human emotions, are spun together in this gothic novel. Tandie Harrison is a police medium who has just suffered a divorce after losing both her psychic visions and her daughter in a car accident. When she leaves New York City to start a new life near her hometown, she moves into the alluring plantation house, Chelby Rose, and falls for its charismatic caretaker, Eric Fontalvo. Their burgeoning affair ignites a centuries old curse, ensnaring them in a web of danger, deceit, and intrigue. Soon Tandie learns that in placid Bolivia, the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected.

Hacienda Moon is a seductive tale of one woman’s journey to confront the demons of her past and find the courage to face her future. It is a mesmerizing novel that explores the deepest depths of human nature, and the characters will hold and haunt you long after you have read the final chapter.

Review
I first became aware of this author from her published book “When Copper Suns fall”. From then on I’ve became a huge supporter of this author and a huge fan. She gave me a opportunity to read her adult novel, which I thank her for. I'm not a fan of ghost novels, but I do find this book to be well written and worth the read.

The plot is great, even though I had problems with the characters. There was a main plot with the ghosts and the past lives of Tandie and Enrique, but there was also a subplot that comes into play later on in the novel. I love how the story is loosely based on the real story of a warship called the Fortuna that attacked the region now known as Brunswick County, North Carolina on September 4, 1748. The added history gave the story an interesting plot device. What I also liked as well was the fact that the two main characters are reincarnated, and even though they couldn’t be together in their past lives, they finally meet once again in present day and had a chance to start over. Tandie is the reincarnation of Alice and Eric is the reincarnation of Enrique. The ghosts were an interesting part of the story, from the three little children to Ella, the evil sister of Alice who killed Alice out of jealousy. I wasn’t so thrilled of Tandie being an author. I didn’t think it added to the story, and it only became interesting when you find out that these are characters she saw in her dreams all her life and that they were based on real people.

This book takes place in present life from the point of view of Tandie, our main character. She recently moved to a small town of Bolivia located in North Carolina.

Tandie is our main female character in this book. For someone who recently lost her daughter, she is strong. I find it sweet that she carries her daughters picture around and finds strength in that picture when ever she looks at it. However, I find her to be a little slow for being a psychic. She has an ability that lets her see ghosts and past events, but when ghost from the past appears before her she thinks it’s a real person dressed in olden style clothes. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t think anyone in this day in age would wear some olden style clothes. Then, for no apparent reason, she suddenly believes in the ghosts she’s seeing, and recognizes them as ghosts.

Eric is our main male character of this book. He’s described as a great, attractive man who loves his job. Though I do hate how Eric acts around Tandie. He doesn’t want to get close to her  because of a curse on his family. Despite this, Tandie wants to be with Eric, not caring about the curse. Eric's point of view is shown in the book, but I found his to be a bit boring and unnecessary. I would have been happier if it was just Tanndie's point of view, because she was the center of the whole plot line, and even though, yes Eric was part of it, I just didn't see his part as interesting as Tandie's.

Then there are the side characters in this book. Abby’s a character whose personality seems to be all over the place. One minute she looks like a great girl, but then as you continue to read her personalty changes to that of a jealous girlfriend of Eric towards Tandie, but they aren't together. This is shown when Tandie first walks into the bar that she works in, and warns her to stay away from Eric. She also blames everything on Tandie, even though they only just met. She really annoys me at times, and I think she’s my least favorite character in the whole book. In my opinion a pointless character to the plot. There is a few other side characters that appear like the ghosts children. Eric's pastor also appear a few times in the book.

I find the romance at an okay pace. Given that they were lovers in another life, that bond would speed things up a little. Though with Eric avoiding Tandie for the most part, it was hard to see how they fell in love in the first place. They did consummate their love near the ending of the book, after Tandie reassured him that they’ve waited over 300 years for this.

Rating

3 out of 5 Howling Wolves

No comments:

Post a Comment